Littletopia at LA Art Show 2016 Recap

Following up on our coverage of the 21st annual LA Art Show, posted yesterday, today we bring you an extensive look at another annual highlight- the Littletopia section of local West Coast galleries and artists. This year, Littletopia continued its foray into featuring Pop Surrealsim works of every shape, size, and imaginable medium from the following galleries: Antler Gallery, Artists Republic 4 Tomorrow, Coagula Curatorial, Copro Gallery, Daniel Rolnik Gallery, Gauntlet Gallery, Gregorio Escalante Gallery, Paradigm Gallery + Studio, Red Truck Gallery, Thinkspace and Think Tank. Together with LA Art Show, they presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Robert Williams, featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 26, who is arguably lauded as the ‘godfather of Lowbrow art and culture’.

Littletopia’s entry way has set the tone for this special section, in recent years featuring a sweet ‘cake’ archway by Scott Hove, with this year’s entrance designed by Costa Mesa based artist Jeff Gillette. Gillette’s landscape paintings tell the absolute opposite story of “the happiest place on Earth”. His “Desert Debris Dismaland Castle” at Littletopia is meant to be a symbolic reimagining of the type of capitalism that Disneyland represents, not to mention “an attractive graphic”. Scott Hove also returned with his yummy walk-in “Giant Cake Maze”, part of a 7,000 square ft installation that fans can revisit when the maze opens at Think Tank Gallery on Valentine’s day weekend.

Actor Kevin Bacon poses with artist Eric Forstman at the LA Art Show.

Actor Zach Braff attends the LA Art Show.

While the entire fair has been lauded as a place to find emerging talents, this makes Littletopia what co-curator Greg Escalante calls a “mecca” for art and imagination. His gallery had several works in the surrounding areas of Littletopia as well, including Robert Xavier Burden’s pricey $200,000 “20th Century Space Opera” painting inspired by Star Wars figurines. Over at Gauntlent Gallery, artists Scott Listfield, known for his paintings featuring a lone exploratory astronaut, and San Francisco based Sean Newport, who creates geometric, wall-mounted sculptures out of wood, were among several artists presenting larger bodies of work. Thinkspace Gallery offered a preview of shows to come by new and familiar names, including playful sculptural works by Alex Yanes, the melancholy miniatures by street artist Isaac Cordal, as well as painted works by Nosego, Okuda, and Jacub Gagnon, just to name a few. Another highlight was Downtown La Art Walk’s presentation of Catherine Coan, a prolific assemblage artist and taxidermist, who created a “wild Vicotian salon” out of her imaginary hyrbid creatures posed in improbable scenarious. Take a look at these works and much more in our recap from opening night below.